Chajnantor plateau

An aerial view of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) site on the Chajnantor plain of the Chilean Andes, 5000 m above sea level. ALMA is the largest ground-based astronomy project in existence, and is comprised of a giant array of 12-m submillimetre quality antennas, with baselines of several kilometres. An additional, compact array of 7-m and 12-m antennas complements the main array. The ALMA project is an international collaboration between Europe, East Asia and North America in cooperation with the Republic of Chile.